


New York City Numbers

by Terapsina



Series: Tumblr Prompt Responses [12]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Emma Swan is the Newest Number, Episode: s03e11 Going Home, Episode: s03e12 New York City Serenade, F/F, Gen, Logistics of Regina's Spell on Emma and Henry, New York City, One Shot, POV Evil Queen | Regina Mills, POV Sameen Shaw, Tumblr Prompt, Vanishing Towns Get Noticed By Artificial Super Intelligences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 23:55:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12736878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terapsina/pseuds/Terapsina
Summary: Regina gives Emma and Henry new memories and sends them off to New York. And if Storybrooke had stayed gone that would have been the end of that particular story.But Storybrooke doesn't stay gone and Root and Shaw get a new number. But why does Emma Swan seem to have two entirely different and separate histories?





	New York City Numbers

**Author's Note:**

> anonymous asked: Could you do a small crossover with Root/Shaw and Swan Queen?
> 
> I didn't think I could actually mesh these two worlds, they don't exactly blend together very easily, but then I remembered that year Emma and Henry spent in New York and... OPPORTUNITY!

It’s not just new memories Regina gives them, it wouldn’t have been enough if she’d just overwritten the truth with a new history and placed it in the two minds of the most precious people in Regina’s life.

If she’d done that they would have run into disaster the first time they came across someone asking Emma for their documents or proof of her guardianship over their son. No, Henry needed a new birth certificate, new school records, new but accurate medical history. And Emma needed new bank statements, a better job history.

A place for them to live.

But it’s not like her curse just gave a town full of people new identities, her curse made the town too. All Regina needed was to use some of that years old magic and direct it elsewhere. 

So she did. She gave Emma her happy memories of having raised Henry. Gave Henry a chance for the brightest future she could. And then she made sure there would be a big apartment waiting for them in New York.

There were some things Regina couldn’t do of course, she couldn’t alter the memories of the people other than Emma and Henry, so she makes them think they’re moving because Emma’s found a new job in a new city - and makes sure the job is there waiting.

She makes sure too that there’s a private school with a Henry Swan on their acceptance lists.

For the most part the details take care of themselves, that’s the way spellwork works, Regina thinks of what she needs to happen and the magic… sorts itself out.

It gives her time to focus on what she’s losing. On Henry, the brightest thing in her life, the little boy who taught her how to love again. And oh, she did, with everything in her. And on Emma, on the lost chance she was only now beginning to realize was there. On the happy ending she wishes she could have shared with them, both of them.

She cries as the magic rages around her, as she directs as much of it as she can toward reconstructing the realty she’s leaving behind.

And for a few precious moments, - even as the little yellow bug drives off with the two sides of her heart, - the world without magic contains two individual histories for both her son and his other -  _only_  - mother.

Then Storybrooke vanishes from this world as if it’s never been there at all and there’s only the one history.

—

But then again Storybrooke doesn’t stay gone forever.

And as it returns it brings back everything else as well.

—

Somewhere out there there is a Machine, it didn’t notice when information from its memory banks vanished, but it noticed its return.

—

“So who’s our new number?” Shaw asks and drops on the couch while unwrapping her sandwich and taking a big bite.

“I’m… not sure.” Root says, Shaw’s back straightens at the tone it comes out in. Hesitant and confused, not something that fits the perpetually-in-God-Mode woman at all. “And she won’t say.”

Ah, that explains part of it, if their ASI isn’t talking to its analog interface then Root’s fish out of water expression makes some sense, but it also opens up a different can of worms entirely. If Finch’s creation is acting up there’s no way to predict the consequences.

They can’t afford The Machine going off script. Especially now that Decima is clearly gearing up for something big.

“What  _does_ it say then?” Shaw narrows her eyes, trying to work through the problem.

“Not much. I have a name and a security number. But… I also have two separate lives that go with it.” Root says, clicking at the keys of her laptop until she brings up a photo of an attractive blonde woman around thirty.

“Identity theft?” Shaw offers, but doesn’t lose interest yet, that’s too simple an answer, Root would have already confirmed it if that were the case.

“No. As far as I can tell, there’s only one Emma Swan but from the age eighteen until a year and a half ago she’s left two separate paper trails.” Root says and brings up a mugshot of the same woman but maybe ten years younger.

“A double life?” Shaw guesses again, and then corrects herself a moment after. “No, why use the same name for both?”

“Exactly!” Root says, nodding. “And there’s no evidence of hacking at all, and believe me, I’ve looked. Thoroughly.”

“So what are the differences?” Shaw asks, starting to feel like they should go at this like a puzzle. “Where does her life split, what’s the divergence?”

“She gave birth to a son while incarcerated. And I’ve found an adoption certificate naming him Henry Mills. But I also have a birth certificate where it’s Henry Swan. I have her getting out of jail and applying for maternity programs in Portland. But I also have her bouncing around the state without a permanent job until she gets a gig as a bounty hunter and settles back in Boston.” Root’s face is drawn into a frustrated scowl and Shaw can’t help notice the strangeness of that, usually Root would be maintaining a mask of eternal amusement in a moment like this. With both Finch and Reese not present and off on their own number, Root’s M.O. would suggest that she’d have taken advantage of the privacy to flirt with her.

Not that privacy is exactly a requirement where Root’s concerned.

Now though Root hasn’t even called her by an irritating pet name yet, or found a chance to insert her first name somewhere in the conversation. This number must really be bugging her.

“So a case of child abduction? Birth mother regrets giving up the kid, finds him, steals him from his adoptive parents and buys a paper trail to avoid getting arrested.” Shaw says but she’s starting to feel like she’s throwing out scenarios Root’s already considered and discarded.

“I hacked into the son’s school records. Henry Swan has a full history, no suspicious holes in it at all. If anything’s strange it’s Henry Mills and his adoptive mother Regina Mills, who’s apparently from a small town in Maine with an unchanged population number for the last  _thirty years_.” Root hisses and glares at her laptop like it has personally offended her.

“Excuse me?” Shaw says, raising her eyebrows.

“Yeah. And The Machine won’t tell me anything except that Emma ‘whoever the hell she is’ Swan is our newest number.” Root says and starts rubbing her fingers over the back of her neck, obviously trying to loosen up the muscles.

Shaw rolls her eyes, more at herself than anyone else for once, and pushes Root’s hands away to take their place. “You’re putting pressure on the wrong points.”

Root melts under her fingers within moments and then lets out a low, exaggerated moan that Sameen’s pretty sure is meant for her.

“Thank you Doctor Shaw.” Root says and looks at her from the corner of her eyes, a certain spark appearing in them. 

Low in Shaw’s stomach the spark ignites, but she ignores it for a moment longer, mind still on the number. “Give me her address, I think we’ll need to break into her apartment to gather more information, maybe beyond just to figure out if she’s a victim or a perpetrator.”

—

Regina stares at them from across the street, trying to pick up the courage to cross it.

They’re laughing, chatting with each other, a cup of coffee in Emma’s hands and a donut in Henry’s. They look so happy like this. Does she really have the right to go there and uproot their lives all over again? Should she just let them be? Let Henry keep the mother who has never hurt him, keep the life without magic or monsters? Let Emma be a person who doesn’t need to force herself into a role of a Saviour?

Maybe they’re better off like this, without Regina there to ruin what they’ve built.

But before she has a chance to talk herself out of the reason she’s here - to get her family back, - she notices the woman with a dog tailing them. She’s tall, brown hair falling a bit over the shoulders, in a black leather jacket.

The woman is subtle, but Regina knows that look, has seen Emma exactly like this on a few occasions. Knows the way she’s walking a few people behind her targets, eyes passing over their backs once in a while to make sure they’re still there, but never lingering.

Rage coils black in her belly and she crosses the street.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to get the logistics of how Regina's spell would work, and that gave me the idea that she definitely created a new life for Emma and Henry.
> 
> Harder was somewhat believably seeing how Root and Shaw would initially try to translate the information available. I hope I succeeded at least somewhat.


End file.
